Epic and romance

“Il Ciel gli diè favore e sotto ai santi / segni ridusse i suoi compagni erranti”. Referring to Rinaldo, this final couplet of the first stanza of the Gerusalemme liberata contains one of Tasso’s long-meditated divergences in theory from the preceding epic model of chivalric romance, whose major expression in the renaissance tradition was the Furioso, a work that was imitated many times throughout the sixteenth century. Goffredo’s rallying of the Christian army beneath the walls of Jerusalem in order to conquer the Holy Sepulchre, indicates how the unity of the epic (equivalent to the unity of action discussed in the debates on poetics) was a choice that went against the multiplicity of actions, characters and adventures in the chivalric epic. To ensure readers’ enjoyment, Tasso’s unity included a variety of episodes, but without really deviating from the main plot, and without losing track of the ideological depth and identity of his epic poem amid the enchantments and marvels of the chivalric epic.